1. Elise
— ? —
Elise
The lipstick on his collar isn’t my shade.
I’m standing in our bedroom at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, holding Simon’s shirt like it’s evidence in a crime scene, which I suppose it is.
The fabric is soft between my fingers. I bought this shirt for his birthday last year, spent way too much money on it because he said he wanted to “upgrade his wardrobe.” And there, just below the collar, is a smear of deep burgundy.
I wear nude pink. Always have. Simon knows this, because he’s complained about it more than once. “Why don’t you ever wear red?” he’d ask, like my lipstick choices were a personal failing.
Well, apparently someone wears red for him.
My hands aren’t shaking. That’s the strange part. I thought this moment would break me open, that I’d crumble the way women do in movies, sliding down walls and sobbing into their palms. Instead, I feel cold. Calculating. Like I’m watching myself from very far away.
There’s a clinical detachment to the way I examine the stain.
Not fresh, it’s been through the wash, which means he was careless enough to leave it in the hamper without checking, which means he’s either stupid or arrogant or both.
Probably both. Simon has never been particularly careful about anything.
I fold the shirt and place it back in the drawer.
Then I wait.
***
He comes home at midnight, smelling like whiskey and something floral I don’t recognize.
“Hey babe.” He barely looks at me as he kicks off his shoes. “Long day. Gonna shower and crash.”
“Sure.”
He doesn’t notice the flatness in my voice. He never notices anything anymore.
I listen to the water run and think about the last three years of my life.
The wedding that felt more like a performance than a celebration.
The honeymoon where he spent half the time on his phone.
The gradual, grinding disappointment of realizing that the man I married was not the man I thought he was.
When did I stop being surprised by his failures?
The shower stops. He emerges in a cloud of steam, towel around his waist, already reaching for his phone.
“I’m beat,” he says. “You coming to bed?”
“In a minute.”
He doesn’t wait for me. Of course he doesn’t.
I give it an hour. Until his snoring fills the bedroom and I’m sure he’s deeply asleep.
Then I take his phone from the nightstand.
The passcode is his birthday. Because of course it is. Simon has never been creative about anything, including his own security.
His texts are boring: work stuff, fantasy football, a group chat with his college friends that’s mostly memes. I’m about to give up when I notice an app I don’t recognize. Something that looks like a generic utility icon but opens into a messaging interface.
My stomach drops.
The contact is saved as “Bunny.” No number, just that stupid name with a little rabbit emoji next to it.
I scroll through the messages.
miss you already
last night was incredible
can’t stop thinking about what you did to me
The timestamps go back over a year. A full year of messages, of photos I can’t unsee, of plans made and lies coordinated.
she won’t notice, she never notices anything anymore
That one stops me cold. That one makes the ice in my chest crack just enough to let the rage through.
I read for another hour. Every message, every photo, every disgusting detail. By the time I’m done, I know everything except the one thing that matters most.
Who the fuck is Bunny?
The contact has no phone number, no identifying information. Just that cutesy nickname and enough sexts to make me want to light my whole life on fire.
I put the phone back on the nightstand.
I go to the bathroom.
I fill a glass with water.
And then I walk back to the bed where my husband is sleeping peacefully, dreaming of whoever Bunny is, and I pour the entire glass directly on his face.
***
Simon comes up swinging.
“What the fuck…” He’s gasping, sputtering, swiping water from his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I throw his phone onto his soaking chest.
“Who is she?”
The color drains from his face. It’s almost satisfying, watching him realize what’s happening. Watching the excuses start forming behind his eyes.
“Elise, babe, let me explain…”
“Who. Is. She?”
“It’s not what you think…”
“It’s exactly what I think.” My voice is steady. I’m impressed by how steady it is. “I read the messages, Simon. All of them. Over a year. So don’t stand there and tell me it’s not what I think.”
He’s scrambling out of bed now, reaching for me. “Baby, please, just listen…”
“Don’t touch me.” I step back, and something in my expression must finally register, because he freezes. “I want a name.”
“It doesn’t matter who…”
“It matters to me.”
He runs his hands through his wet hair, and I watch him calculate. Watch him weigh his options, figure out the angle, try to find the play that gets him out of this.
“She doesn’t mean anything,” he finally says. “It was just… it was a mistake. A stupid mistake, and it’s over now, and…”
“Over a year isn’t a mistake. Over a year is a choice.”
“You don’t understand.” He’s switching tactics now, going for wounded. “Things have been so hard lately, with work and the pressure, and you’ve been so distant…”
“I’ve been distant?” The laugh that escapes me is ugly. “I’ve been distant because you’re never here. Because every time I try to talk to you, you’re on your phone or at the office or out with your friends or…” I stop. Take a breath. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.”
“Elise…”
“We’re done.”
The words land like a bomb. Simon’s face cycles through shock, denial, anger, then settles on something that looks almost like contempt.
“You’re overreacting.”
“I’m really not.”
“It was one mistake…”
“It was a year of mistakes. A year of lying to my face. A year of…” My voice cracks, and I hate it. I hate that he can still make me crack. “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me.”
I grab my purse, my keys, my phone. I don’t pack a bag. I don’t take anything that would require me to stay in this room with him for one more second.
“Where are you going to go?” He’s sneering now, the mask fully off. “Running to your mother? Oh wait, she’s a thousand miles away. Running to my mother? Good luck with that.”
He’s right about one thing. I can’t call his mother. She has made it clear from day one that I’m not quite good enough for her precious baby boy. She looked at me on my wedding day like I was a stain on her family photos, and nothing I’ve done in three years has changed her opinion.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say.
“Elise, come on.” He softens his voice, tries a different approach. “Let’s just talk about this. We can work through it. Couples go through rough patches all the time…”
“This isn’t a rough patch. This is you fucking someone else for a year.”
He flinches at the word. Good.
I walk out the door without looking back.
***
Lilia answers on the second ring.
“Elise?” Her voice is thick with sleep. “It’s three in the morning. What’s wrong?”
I’m sitting in my car in the parking garage, staring at the concrete wall in front of me, and I realize I’m shaking. Not crying, I refuse to cry over him, but shaking, like my body is finally catching up to what my mind already knows.
“I found out Simon’s cheating on me.”
Silence on the other end. Then: “Oh my god. Elise. Are you okay? Where are you?”
“In the parking garage. I just… I walked out. I couldn’t stay there.”
“Come here. Right now. I’m making tea.”
“Lilia, it’s three in the morning…”
“I don’t care if it’s three in the morning. You’re not sitting alone in a parking garage. Get your ass over here.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m curled up on her couch with a blanket around my shoulders and a mug of tea warming my hands. Lilia is cross-legged across from me, still in her pajamas, her brown hair messy from sleep.
“Tell me everything,” she says.
So I do.
I tell her about the lipstick, the phone, the messages. About “Bunny” and the year of lies and the way he tried to make it my fault. About the cold fury that’s replaced every other emotion, leaving me feeling hollow and sharp at the same time.
Lilia listens without interrupting. When I’m done, she reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“He’s garbage,” she says. “Complete and total garbage. I always knew there was something off about him.”
“You never said anything.”
“You seemed happy. Or at least, you seemed like you were trying to be happy, and I didn’t want to make it worse.” She shakes her head. “I should have said something. God, Elise, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“What are you going to do?”
I stare into my tea. The answer comes easily, like it’s been waiting for me to ask the question.
“I’m divorcing his sorry ass.”
Lilia nods firmly. “Good. He doesn’t deserve you. He never did.”
“I just…” I trail off, trying to find the words. “I feel so stupid. A whole year, and I didn’t know. What does that say about me?”
“It says he’s a good liar. That’s not on you.”
But it feels like it’s on me. It feels like I should have seen it, should have known, should have trusted my instincts when things started feeling wrong instead of convincing myself I was being paranoid.
“Who do you think it is?” Lilia asks. “The other woman?”
“I have no idea. The contact just says ‘Bunny.’ No real name, no number.”
“That’s… weird. Like he was specifically hiding her identity.”
“Or she was.”
We’re both quiet for a moment, contemplating the implications.
“It doesn’t matter,” I finally say. “Whoever she is, she can have him. I’m done.”
“Damn right you are.” Lilia refills my tea, then settles back into her chair. “You can stay here as long as you need. We’ll figure out the logistics tomorrow. Tonight, you just rest.”
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate. “Really, Lilia. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“That’s what best friends are for.”
She hugs me, and I let myself lean into the comfort. Let myself believe, for just a moment, that everything is going to be okay.
Over my shoulder, Lilia’s phone buzzes on the coffee table. I see her glance at it, see something flicker across her face, then watch her quickly tilt the screen away before I can see the name.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Just work stuff.” She waves it off with a smile. “Nothing important.”
I’m too exhausted to question it. Too drained to notice the way her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You should sleep,” she says, tucking a blanket more firmly around me. “We’ll figure out everything in the morning.”
I close my eyes and let the exhaustion pull me under.
But something nags at the edge of my consciousness. Something about the way she tilted that phone. The way her face changed, just for a second, before the mask slid back into place.
I’m too tired to chase the thought.
I’ll wonder about it later.